How to Save a Life
by XZeroQueen
Summary: Carlos would say that it was a simple matter of physics, whether it was good or bad, in his favor or not, ordered or chaotic. It was just physics, he'd say. To which Jay would say, fuck physics. Fuck anything that hurts Carlos.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I should have written an update for literally any of my other stories, but I got this idea and it just wouldn't leave my brain alone. So, here we are. As usual, reviews are more appreciated than I can put into words.

* * *

In the end, it didn't matter whose fault it was; Jay would still blame himself regardless. It could have been a fall, or a thunderbolt from the sky, or an illness, and it wouldn't change anything.

But the fact that Carlos got hurt under Jay's watch made it a hell of a lot easier.

The fact that Carlos got hurt on the Isle, where Jay had vowed Carlos would never be harmed again, made it inevitable.

With Harry Hook stirring again, ready to try on his own what Uma had failed at, the four had had no choice but to return and confront the threat.

"We've become quite the do-gooders," Jay had joked, ruffling Carlos's hair. "They may as well knight us now!"

"Knight Jay, defender of the innocent," Carlos had replied with no small amount of sarcasm. "Warrior for virtue!"

Jay had fired back, "Knight Carlos, defender of helpless maidens everywhere!" and run to Mal, kneeling before her. "My lady, will you allow this hero to assist you?"

Mal had rolled her eyes and pushed him away, and they had turned serious as they once again approached the godforsaken island.

Not long after that, Jay would find himself wishing he actually _was_ a knight, or any kind of warrior at all. Anything that could have protected Carlos.

Carlos had made his contribution to their mission already, using his speed to run past Harry into the ship and retrieve the items Harry had boasted about as the key to a revolution. Jay would trail behind, close enough to step in if need be, but far enough not to make their presence obvious.

Jay was the second best at being quiet after Carlos. Being a thief required a certain level of sneakiness, but being Cruella De Vil's son required the ability to become _invisible_.

And so Carlos had been sent in alone, but not really, and had made his way to a room filled with what looked like a year's worth of technological scraps from Auradon.

Looking at the wires and components, it was obvious to Carlos that they were trying to replicate his barrier-destroying machine. They may have had far better parts than Carlos had dreamed of when he built his own device, but without his technical gifts, they were unlikely to get far. Wires were just wires without an engineer's brain.

Surely, Carlos thought, even in their arrogance, Harry and his crew would realize as much? They were too smart to expect a mass of mechanical scraps to assemble itself, and they surely were aware that with Carlos gone, no one on the Isle had anywhere near enough skill to make such a machine.

Carlos's heart sank as realization came over him.

Yes, Harry's crew knew they had nothing but useless scrap. An invention wasn't their goal at all.

This was nothing more than a decoy.

Sure enough, just as he turned around to run to safety, a hook seemed to appear out of nowhere, the curve fitting remarkably well against Carlos's throat and forcing him back.

"Welcome aboard, matey!" Harry said into his ear. "Shall I give ye a tour? Ye didn't get ta see much last time." Carlos swallowed and shook his head; Harry just shrugged behind him. "Then we'll wait. Yer crew against mine, hmm?"

Carlos swallowed again, but stayed silent. Being Cruella's son meant knowing when talking would only make things worse. He knew when to just accept what was being said, no matter how badly he wants to fight back.

Still, his eyes scanned the room, a silent plea. _Please hurry, Jay._

The seconds ticked on- a clock was mounted on the wall, the damn thing mocking him. One minute, two, five, ten. Carlos could feel Harry's breath against his neck, and he felt Carlos use his free hand- his free _hook_ \- to stroke down Carlos's back.

Finally Carlos lost it and yelled, "For the love of god, Jay! Any time you want to help, I'm ready!"

"Maybe he's forgotten ye," Harry suggested, faking sincerity. "Are ye sure ye don't wanna join me crew instead?"

Carlos snarled, but said nothing.

"What a feisty pup," Harry said, yipping like a tiny poodle.

And still Carlos said nothing. If he could remain silent while being beaten by his mother, while being told he was nothing but a mistake and would never be worth anything, he could handle taunting from _Harry Hook._ Although he still wished Jay would hurry.

Unknown to him, Jay was being held back by a different threat. He had lost sight of Carlos- the boy being too fast for his own good- and in trying to find him, had taken a wrong turn and ended up at a part of the ship that was in serious disrepair. Now he had to move skillfully to avoid falling through the huge gaps in the floor.

By the time he managed to maneuver his way out of the danger and had tracked Carlos down again, the girls, too had lost their way, and Jay was torn between helping them and helping Carlos.

His instinct to protect Carlos won out, and he went after the boy, finding him being held by Harry.

"Hook!" Jay barked. "Let him go!"

"Not a chance," Harry said immediately. "Not unless ye've got something ta offer me in return."

Jay turned dangerously calm, tilting his head at Harry. "A trade," he hummed. To anyone who _didn't_ know him, it sounded like he was honestly thinking. But Carlos knew better. The only thing Jay was thinking in that moment was how best to murder Harry. Jay wasn't hard to anger, but threatening Carlos was by far the easiest way to infuriate him.

"A trade," Jay said again. "I think I can do that."

In the blink of an eye Jay's calm mask melted away, revealing a terrifying fury. "How about you let him go, and I don't _break your fucking neck_ , Hook?" he roared, taking a step forward. "How does that sound?"

Jay, despite knowing Carlos for so long, still managed to forget some of the lessons Carlos had to show him. Somehow Jay still managed to discount the importance of speed; or, at least, he did when he was dealing with people other than Carlos. He remembered it with Carlos, most likely because it was one of his greatest assets, and he would never forget his best friend's strengths. But on others, he either forgot it was a factor, or ignored it. He never seemed to remember that his brute force meant nothing if he could never actually make contact with an enemy.

And so, even as he lunged for them, Harry managed to step back, tsking. "Ye really have lost yer touch."

It was the last straw for Jay, who finally charged in a blind rage.

Unfortunately, it was the exact wrong move. Carlos tried to convey as much, but as he was yanked back, the hook pressing into his throat took his air away. Harry fell, taking Carlos with him and choking him for several horrifying seconds, and Carlos let out a desperate gasp.

A bull-like roar escaped Jay at the sight, and he charged yet again.

And that would prove to be the worst mistake of Jay's life.

His momentum was too great, preventing him from stopping when he overshot the pair. He instead careened into a bookcase behind them- said bookcase not being used to store books, but various pirate-related artifacts Harry had collected.

The bookcase- obviously, being on the Isle- was defective, built on uneven legs. Harry had always steadied it with a paperweight, but, as Carlos knew well, an external component would never help with the overall stability of the thing.

And so, when faced with the raw power of Jay hitting its weaker side, the bookcase toppled.

It was the penultimate event in a string of misfortune, really. The quartet being forced to the Isle, Carlos and Jay being separated, Hook getting his hands on Carlos- all could have been dealt with easily. But once the bookcase came into play, the scales were tipped in favor of disorder.

Carlos, in his love of physics, had extensively researched entropy, and had once explained the concept to a baffled Jay.

"It's the amount of disorder in the universe," he'd said.

And Jay had just stared. "You actually measure that?"

"Well, not exactly." Carlos had shrugged. "It's just important to know it. Because when good things get used up, they leave disorder in their place. And one day the good will be drowned out. Right now, it's just being… challenged. But one day, the disorder will take over. Everything else will just… get used up."

"You mean that hasn't already happened?" Jay had asked, looking out their dorm room window towards the Isle.

Carlos had shaken his head. "Good isn't overpowered, yet. There's forces like us around."

Jay had thought for a long moment, staring out the window. "We went from disordered to good. So could the rest of the universe?"

Shaking his head again, Carlos had said, "People can, because we have free will. We're more than a set of laws. But the atoms and stars, they only have one direction. You can't undo that stuff. It would be like turning ashes back into a tree."

"Mal probably could, with the right spell," Jay had argued. "Those guys didn't take magic into account when they thought of all that stuff."

"If magic could erase the bad in the world, I think the most powerful magic users already would have done it," Carlos had said softly.

Jay didn't know why the concept unsettled him so much. It was all just more science crap. Carlos had told him once that the sun would explode in a couple billion years or so, too, and he hadn't cared. So why would this bother him when, Carlos said, the decay would take so long that it would make the loss of the sun look like a split second?

But every time he'd thought of it since, it always sent a chill down his spine.

And now, as he watched the bookcase start to fall, far too fast for him to be able to do anything about it, he realized why. Entropy was something that couldn't be fought. It marched on against all resistance, swallowing anything good in its wake, and he was completely powerless against it all. He watched the bookcase land on Carlos the way a black hole would consume a planet, the way a sun would turn into a supernova and destroy an entire solar system. The planets would be just another casualty of entropy, and so, too, was Carlos.

Carlos would say that it was a simple matter of physics, whether it was good or bad, in his favor or not, ordered or chaotic. It was just physics, he'd say.

To which Jay would say, _fuck physics._

 _Fuck anything that hurts Carlos._

Fuck physics, and fuck that bookcase.

The bookcase made surprisingly little sound as it landed; certainly not the cacophony he would have expected. Jay would have hoped it had landed harmlessly if not for the one sound he did hear- a _crack_ that he knew from experience meant bones had broken.

Jay would have hoped it was _Harry_ who had taken the brunt of it, but Carlos had landed on top. Hook, Jay seethed, had gotten himself a human shield without even trying.

The room got so quiet that Jay's ears started producing their own sound to fill the void, a buzzing that made Jay dizzy- almost too much so to reach the disaster zone.

But he did, and made short work of pulling the bookcase off of Carlos.

Immediately, Jay's face fell almost as hard as the shelves had.

Carlos was unconscious, blood streaming from a wound on the side of his head. His left arm was obviously broken, swelling rapidly and sticking out an angle that made Jay nauseous.

Worst of all, he was barely breathing. In fact, it was several seconds before a tremor rattled the boy's body and let Jay know he was still alive at all.

"Carlos!" he cried, pulling the boy into his arms. Too late he remembered that he shouldn't, that for all he knew Carlos's neck could be broken, and that only made his panic worse. What if he had just paralyzed his friend for life?

Though, it wouldn't be a very long 'rest of his life' if Jay didn't get him back to Auradon _now._

"You," he spat at Harry- literally- "will regret this one day."

And with that, he took off, holding Carlos in a modified bridal carry that let him support his neck as much as possible. It wasn't much better, but it was all he could do.

"MAL! EVIE! WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed as he sprinted through the ship. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

It seemed like an eternity before he finally heard Mal's voice. "Jay? We're on the deck! What happened?"

Jay charged towards it, a sheen of sweat starting to appear on his face. He only realized he'd made it when he heard the girls gasp in horror, Evie immediately demanding to know what had happened.

"Later," he grit out, already having walked past them to the docks. "We have to get him back to Auradon _now_."

The girls said nothing, obeying him without hesitation. Jay focused his attention on Carlos, trusting that the girls would watch out for any potential threats while he made sure Carlos stayed _alive_ in his arms.

They managed to get to the docks with no further incident, and Jay could have kissed the limo when it came into his line of sight. Mal and Evie got in the front, Mal driving, while Jay climbed into the back, cradling Carlos's unconscious form.

"Stay with me, man," he said, too quietly for anyone else to hear. Not that Carlos could hear him either, but… well. "You can't fucking die. Not like this." He gave a short, almost hysterical laugh. "You're too fucking cool to be killed by a _bookcase_ , man. You deserve a blaze of glory." He fell silent. "Or, if you wanted to… not die at all, ever, that would be even better. Yeah. That would be cool."

He stared out the window as they reached the Auradon mainland, despair starting to creep up and take over him. It was like a frost that crept over the ground, freezing it and killing all the living things that needed the heat.

"Don't you dare die on me," he told Carlos, watching the boy breathe and wishing he would give some indication he heard Jay at all. "I'll never forgive you, you know that? If you die I'll hate you forever and you'd rather anything than that. So you'd better wake the hell up."

The faked bravado only made Jay feel more pathetic, and he was suddenly fighting back tears.

But thankfully, at that moment, they arrived at the hospital. Jay was out of the car almost before it stopped, barreling through the doors and screaming for help, not aware of what he was actually saying. Whatever it was, though, seemed to get the point across- or maybe it was just the fact that he'd run in there carrying a bloody, unconscious teenager- and a half dozen doctors and nurses were suddenly surrounding him, instructing him to place Carlos on a medical bed and then forcing him back.

Almost the instant a doctor shined a light in Carlos's eyes, they were wheeling him away, and Jay was able to make out that they were shouting to prepare an operating room for Carlos immediately.

And though Jay followed at just enough of a distance not to make himself obvious, he was soon being pushed back by a nurse who saw him. "You can't go in there," she said, kind but firm, and Jay snarled at her.

"The hell I can't!" And with that he pushed past her, only to have his shirt grabbed.

"I mean it. Nobody can go back there," the nurse said. "Only the patient and the people treating him."

 _The patient_. Hearing Carlos called a patient made Jay feel ill, so much so that he thought the hospital might just get a second _patient_ right then and there.

But he managed to swallow down the nausea as the nurse told him, "it would help if you told us what happened, so we know what injuries we're treating."

He could do that, he supposed. He'd rather be with Carlos, but helping him indirectly was the next best thing. Anything but just sitting on his ass and waiting. Jay wasn't good at waiting on an ordinary day, let alone now.

So he told her everything he knew, everything he thought might be even a little help. He told her how Carlos's arm had bent out and how he'd bled and how he'd been unconscious right away, and had stayed that way the whole time.

Jay might not be smart like Carlos, but he had an eye for detail. He had to, to be able to pick out what items to steal. But now he was using them to help instead.

But soon he was out of things to say, and the nurse half guided, half forced him to what she called a waiting room- a concept Jay found entirely absurd. But that was where he was to stay until they came to him. So he dutifully sat next to Mal and Evie, who were already texting everyone they could think of to tell them what had happened.

And now Jay had nothing to do to occupy himself except replay the last two hours over and over again in his head.

Kicking the toes of his shoes against the tile floor, he let out a growl and made a mental list of the things he was angry at. Harry. Harry was the first one he thought of. Everyone else on the Isle too, to a lesser extent. Whoever had let Harry get that bookcase, whoever had helped him form that plan, whoever had decided to trick _Carlos_ and try to use him as bait for the others. Himself, for letting it happen to Carlos in the first place. In fact, when he replayed the scene in his mind, he realized that he was the one who had sent the bookcase tumbling down in the first place. _He_ did this to Carlos, even more than Harry.

And that, Jay realized, meant he had to revise his list of 'things to blame for this', and put himself at the top. Harry would be second for bringing them there.

Third would be _science._ Biology, for making Carlos's body unable to withstand the impact, and physics, for making the bookcase fall that way in the first place, and for favoring disorder. Physics, for making him betray Carlos.

Fuck physics.

* * *

A/N: A few things to note. Firstly, here, Jay takes a more philosophical interpretation of entropy; entropy is more of a metaphor to him than a scientific concept. Hence him holding entropy responsible for Carlos's injury. Entropy, to Jay, is sort of a shorthand for all the wrongness in the universe.

Secondly, for all you Harry Hook fans (of which I am one!)- don't worry, he'll have a chance at redemption later. That's not to say he'll become harmless, of course, but his chance to make a new start isn't gone by any means.

Thirdly, as an aspiring vet, I have a fascination with what one might call medical procedurals. The chapters to come will be heavy on medical 'stuff', but I hope to still very much keep this an emotional story. That said, in trying to be realistic, there may be times where I lose the balance, because aside from Carlos and perhaps Evie, none of the teenagers would understand a word the doctors will have to say about Carlos's condition. So, bear with me, and if I seem to be tipping the scales too far in one direction, please do let me know so I can note this for the next chapter. I have no idea how long this one will be, but I anticipate a minimum of 10 chapters/25,000 words when all is said and done. I have the plot sketched in my head and it will take a while to go through it.

That does it for this chapter. I hope you're enjoying this, and I will try to get the next chapter up soon. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Got this next chapter written much faster than I thought I would! And I'm actually pretty happy with it, to boot. Carlos is my favorite character, but it's just as interesting to write him through Jay's eyes. I hope you all feel the same. Enjoy!

* * *

"If you keep that up, you're going to dig a hole in the floor," Mal called from her chair.

"Fuck off," Jay replied, and turned around to do another lap around the room. Two clockwise, two counterclockwise. It was a simple pattern that kept him satisfactorily distracted.

Mal and Evie shared a look. Not just a look, but a capital-l Look.

Jay paid them no mind. He dropped to the ground and did twenty pushups as fast as he possibly could, savoring the aching and trembling in his arm muscles.

Jay hated hospitals. This was his first time in one, but that was all it took.

Hospitals were too clean, they were quiet, they were boring, and worst of all, they housed sick people.

Illness and injury were a constant on the Isle. There were colds and papercuts, and then there were broken bones and pneumonia, but none of them were ever talked about. The Isle's people toughed it out unless they were on their deathbed, and if they _were_ , they still fought their hardest, until they recovered or died. Those who died were deemed to have been too weak for the Isle anyway, and their corpses were hauled off to the mainland, cremated, and then returned to their next of kin. The families would then empty the ashes into the ocean and see how much they could get for the urn.

The concept of a building the size of a castle dedicated solely to helping the ill unnerved Jay. Then again, so did most things in Auradon, and they probably always would.

Even worse than the existence of such a place was the fact that Carlos was in bad enough shape to need one. Were they back on the Isle, Jay knew exactly what he would do; he would sprint from shop to shop, trying to find anything at all- whether herbs or potions or straight-up snake oil- that might help. Carlos would be bundled in a blanket on what passed for his bed, and they would all try to keep Cruella far away, knowing she would only add to the boy's injuries. And secretly they would all prepare themselves for the inevitable, all whispering soft goodbyes to Carlos with the knowledge the boy wouldn't make it through the night, since an unconscious being couldn't swallow any of the meager remedies they'd scrounged anyway.

That was what the Isle protocol would have been. But here, people dedicated their entire lives to helping the sick. It meant Carlos had a chance.

But that scared Jay. Few things were scarier than hope. Hope meant the possibility of being let down. He couldn't be let down if he accepted the possibility of Carlos's death. But here, it would all be drawn out for however long it took them to operate.

 _Operations_ were another concept that terrified Jay. Knives were for killing, not healing. And a knife certainly didn't belong anywhere near a brain. Carlos would surely have joined him in balking at the thought.

Now Jay paused his attempts to burn all the excess energy inside him, and looked up at the girls. He pulled himself to a sitting position, not caring that he was still on the floor. "They're cutting up his _brain_. Doesn't that bother you?"

"More than I can stand," Mal said bluntly.

Evie hesitated. "It's what surgery is."

"But they're fucking with his _brain_ ," Jay argued, shuddering. "I wouldn't let anyone mess around in there if my life depended on it." It felt so intrusive, ten times worse than being caught naked.

"Carlos doesn't have a choice," Mal pointed out.

Jay nodded, having to admit the truth of that. Still… "what if they fuck something up?"

"Well," Evie said, slowly. "It… it isn't like they'd make things worse than when he got here."

Jay sighed. "Yeah. I know."

The doctors had come out a half hour before to explain it all, using lots of words Jay was certain they'd invented on the spot just to pacify them. There was no way words that long could just slide off someone's tongue unless they were made up.

Then again, Carlos did it all the time, but that was different. That was Carlos.

Evie had tried her best to translate the jargon, but even she had gotten lost halfway through. She understood terms like hematoma and depressed skull fracture, but they lost her when they talked about a "G.C.S."

The trio came out of it understanding the gist of it, at least, which was that Carlos's skull had been broken and pushed down when the bookcase had landed on it. And that in turn compressed his brain, which was why he'd been unconscious- actually comatose, the doctors had said, but they felt confident he'd awaken after the surgery. Assuming, of course, that he lived through the surgery, which the doctors had warned might not happen despite their best efforts. Brains were too fragile and too unpredictable, they said. Two people could come in at the same time with the same injury and be treated by the same doctors, but one could live and the other could die. Or both could die, or both could live. They just had no way of knowing.

Aside from the head trauma, there was Carlos's left arm. It would definitely faster than his brain, but even then, they'd have to operate on that too when Carlos stabilized enough to be able to handle being opened up again. From the looks of things, Carlos had tried to use the arm to break the fall, but hadn't been fast enough. All he'd done was make it vulnerable too.

The worst of it was his head, by far. From what Jay had gathered, Carlos's type of skull fracture was one of the most dangerous kinds, and skull fractures were all serious to begin with.

Looking up at Mal and Evie, Jay let out a humorless laugh. "It's kinda funny, isn't it? Carlos has the best brain out of all of us. But his is the one that got hurt."

Mal and Evie gave each other another Look, but kept silent. Jay wished he spoke their language. They could say so much with their faces, and it made Jay feel left out at times.

Sighing, Jay rested his face in his hands. "How long does it take to fix a brain, anyway?" He felt like a petulant child. "Hours? Days?" The thought of waiting here for days had that restless energy pulsing through him again, and he stood up. Back to his laps.

"Jay," Mal said.

Jay met her eyes, but said nothing. If it was really important, she'd continue anyway, and when she fell silent Jay knew it didn't matter.

"Jay," Evie tried, but she got the same treatment as Mal.

Once the girls had returned to doing whatever it was they did on their phones, Jay slid to his back, doing as many curl-ups as he could before he felt like he'd vomit. He didn't want to throw up, afraid they doctors would think he was sick too. What if they decided something in him needed the same kind of fixing as Carlos's brain?

The doctors had promised Carlos wouldn't feel what they were doing, not only because of the coma but because they'd use medicine to make sure he stayed asleep. But that sounded an awful lot like a curse to Jay, and made his mistrust of Auradon rise all over again. They were always giving the Isle kids one set of rules while using another for themselves. Curses were evil when used by them, but here they could call it "medicine."

Another uneasy thought pulled its way to the front of Jay's mind, and he stopped his exercise again, eyebrows knit together. "Carlos has nightmares, like, every night. What if he's scared? What if he gets uncomfortable where they're lying him down?"

Evie said, to her feet more than Jay, "the medicine stops dreams from happening, good or bad. You don't think or feel or anything until you wake up."

Jay frowned, but accepted her explanation without argument. At least, not a verbal one. In his head he was already picking it apart.

It wasn't like he had much else to do. Just that, and exercise, and his body was starting to protest the latter. Not that that would stop him. He'd keep going until he collapsed from exhaustion.

Again Jay's chin rested on his hands, and he gave a deep sigh. "Why can't I just watch them do the surgery so I know Carlos is okay? I don't get it."

Mal spoke this time. "They probably think it's too scary… they don't want kids seeing that." She shrugged. "The Auradon kids wouldn't be able to handle. They probably don't believe we've seen worse things than a brain."

"Carlos is a kid too," Jay argued. "If he has to deal with it, I can too."

"But Carlos has to be there," Evie said. "We don't. They just want to protect us, Jay."

Jay's chest suddenly felt tight, but he couldn't explain why. It was time to turn to his old standby. Or, rather, his new one, since he'd only been able to do it since coming to Auradon. Either way, it was time to eat until he was too full to think about anything but sleeping.

"You guys hungry? Want some lunch?" He glanced at the clock. "Or dinner. Same thing." He was already fishing in his his pocket. "I could go for some pizza. They have that here right? They have to. Pizza's, like, all anyone here eats." Not that he minded. Pizza was about 75% of Jay's diet these days.

"Pass," Evie said, lazily raising her hand in a dismissive gesture.

"Get me a sandwich or something," Mal said, shrugging.

And with that, Jay was off. Having a goal would help just as much as the food itself.

Of course, he managed to lose himself three times on the way to the cafeteria, but he didn't mind. It meant more time without the girls' scrutiny.

He arrived at the cafeteria, and was only a little disappointed that pizza wasn't on their menu. They did have burgers, which was more than acceptable to Jay. For Mal he grabbed something called a French dip sandwich, which smelled delicious. If Mal ended up hating it he'd be happy to take it.

Jay paid for the two burgers he'd ordered for himself, the sandwich for Mal, and a salad for Evie; he wasn't going to let her go hungry no matter what she said, not after he'd learned what her mom said to her on a daily basis, but he also knew she wouldn't agree to anything more substantive. With that, he headed back into the waiting room.

Once there, Jay scarfed the food down, as he always did, though it wasn't out of desperate hunger like it had been when he'd first come to Auradon. And it wasn't out of fear he might never eat again, either, which had been a worry of his for a while too. He just… did it. Some part of him took joy in the gluttony for reasons he didn't understand.

Jay ate until his belly bulged and he had to secretly unzip his pants, hiding that fact with his shirt. Then he leaned back against the chair he'd sat in and rubbed his stomach lazily, closing his eyes.

"When are you due, Jay?" Evie asked, giggling.

Jay opened his eyes. "Excuse me?"

Mal joined in on Evie's laughter as the latter said, "You look pregnant, Jay!"

Jay hmphed. "I do not! I'm just bloated." He flexed his arm muscles. "Still strong. I just ate too much!"

Evie walked over to him, pressing a hand to his stomach, still giggling. "What are you going to name it?"

Jay glared, throwing her hand off him. "I don't care what chivalry class says, I will _not_ hesitate to hit a girl."

That, of course, only made her more insistent on tormenting him, and Jay groaned in frustration. Though he had to admit, it was nice to pretend things were normal for a moment.

Smirking, Evie poked his stomach. "Why, Jay? You have perfect childbearing hips! I'm jealous."

Jay groaned. "Are you forgetting that I'm a dude? My hips mean nothing! There's only one part of me that matters when it comes to babies and I'd rather not talk about that in public!"

"If you had to carry someone's child, who would it be?" Mal's voice was lighthearted, but also genuinely curious.

Jay sighed. "I don't know. Okay? Are we done?"

"I think I do," Evie said in a sing-song voice. "It would b-"

"I'M A GUY! It doesn't matter!" Jay snapped, shoving her lightly. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms around his chest.

"Touchy," Evie said, holding her arms up in surrender.

"Or, not-touchy," Mal said, shrugging. "Okay, that was bad. It was funnier in my head."

"So is everything you say," Jay shot back, smirking.

It felt good to laugh, despite everything. This way he could almost pretend Carlos was just at the library. Some new science book would have caught his attention, and he would lose himself in it, not returning until the library closed and he got kicked out for the night. Then he'd come into his and Jay's room, prattling to Jay about his newfound knowledge. "Jay, did you know a man once drank a vial of bacteria to prove they caused stomach ulcers?" he'd say in awe. "Jay, did you know people from Auradon went to the moon once? And with less technology than we have in our phones!"

And Jay would reply with some quip about wanting to send _Carlos_ to the moon to get a few minutes of quiet, but they would both be well aware he didn't mean a word, that few things made him happier than Carlos's genuine delight at learning. After spending his first fourteen years terrified of his own shadow, Carlos deserved that much.

But Carlos _wasn't_ at the library, and the injustice of it all rankled.

"When I was six, and we were all at Evie's birthday party," Jay said suddenly, gazing up at the girls. "Well, almost all- sorry Mal-"

"Over it," Mal said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Right," Jay said. "Well… Carlos was the youngest there. Well, except a few toddlers, but they don't count." He shrugged. "I pushed him over. No reason why. I just felt like it. And he started to cry." He looked down at his hands, swallowing hard as the guilt worsened the ache inside him. "I told him to suck it up, there was no way he was hurt. It was only after I went over to Hell Hall for the first time that I realized he was _scared,_ not hurt. He probably thought I was his mom for a second." Jay looked up at Mal and Evie. "I was a bastard to him from day one. But he still became my friend just because we all had an adventure together. I never even told him I was sorry." _And now I might never get to_ , he thought, but didn't say aloud; the girls' faces made it clear they understood regardless.

Mal looked between the pair, before admitting in a quiet voice, "Uma and I liked to prank his mother at the docks whenever we could. I never knew- or cared- that it probably made things so much worse for him. He looked terrified every time we messed with her, but I wanted to be the 'evilest' with Uma, so…"

"My turn to share?" Evie asked with a wry smile. She turned serious, frowning deeply. "I lived right by him but I never helped him. I would have tried _something_ if I knew. But I never knew he existed because _that woman_ was always either screeching his name and threatening to beat him, or calling him 'my pet.' I always thought she had a dog, not a son."

Listening to Evie's confession, Jay wasn't sure which of the two behaviors was worse. Being beaten was bad enough, but being called 'pet' by his own mother…

"That's creepy," he muttered. "That's really, really creepy."

"You're telling me," Evie said, looking about as ill as Jay felt.

"You know what? I think that's enough heartfelt confessions for now," Mal said, looking uneasily at her friends.

"Seconded," Evie said.

"Thirded," Jay said, looking at the ground now.

Silence fell, comfortable at first- as comfortable as anything could be in this situation.

But then it started to drag.

It started to eat away at something inside Jay.

The longer the silence outside lasted, the louder his brain got to compensate, and Jay didn't like what his mind had to tell him. They were all dark things about Carlos, about how Carlos would die and it would all be his fault and he'd never deserved him to begin with.

He would rather listen to Jafar's rants on an endless loop than what was in his own head.

Jay felt restless, but still sluggish from gorging himself. His gut still ached.

Just as Jay decided he couldn't take any more and he got ready to start pacing again, a door opened, and a doctor made their way to them.

Jay couldn't help but wonder if there was a way they could go back to waiting.

But, of course, there was no way to delay the doctor, and Jay felt the hairs on the back of his neck raising as he waited for the doctor to get close enough to speak.

* * *

A/N: For anyone who might be worried- no, the jokes halfway through the chapter were not any kind of foreshadowing for MPreg or anything in the future. I do like MPreg, but it won't be going into this story, so those of you who dislike it need not worry. :)


End file.
